No Dominion(29)

 Shoot him!

Yeah, she knows about pain, she knows what it takes. She’s ready for a few bullets.

I bring up the syringe and show it to her.

Her remaining eye rolls around and fixes on the syringe. The boys are circling, looking for the shot that will harm her the least.

I stick the needle in her empty eye socket, my thumb on the plunger.

And apparently some things are worse than pain.

 Don’t! Don’t shoot!

They don’t.

The room is quiet. We can all hear each other breathing too hard. Some of Vandewater’s blood drips off her face and hits the floor. The guy by the window hisses and gurgles like a pot of something viscous boiling over. The room stinks of his cancer and the lingering tang of the anathema.

I put my mouth close to her ear.

 Tell them to drop their guns and fuck off out of my way.

 Allow him to-

I clamp my arm tight.

 That’s not what I said.

She gets it right this time.

 Drop your guns and fuck off out of his way.

They drop their guns and fuck off out of my way.

I glance at my possessions scattered on the floor. The.32, the broken switchblade, the gutted Zippo, the broken poker chip, and the spilled bowl of tobacco and shredded cigarette paper. I’ll miss that Zippo, but more than anything, I wish I could have those cigarettes back.



The service elevator’s just off the kitchen. There are also a couple plastic wrapped corpses and more of the boys. The boys drop their guns and fuck off just as well as the others.

I frog-walk Vandewater to the elevator, watched by the boys.

There’s a keyhole just above the call button.

 You got the key?

She nods.

 Use it.

She takes a key ring from her pocket, sorts the proper one, twists it in the keyhole and pushes the button. We all wait a moment. The blood in her eye socket congeals a little more. The boys have brief wet dreams about what they’ll do to me when they get the chance. The elevator creaks in the shaft. If we weren’t all otherwise occupied, we’d be staring at the numbers above the door, watching them light up one by one.

 How long this thing take?

She twists her neck a little, getting some air. Her voice rasps.

 It’s old.

 No shit.

More creaking.

I remember something important.

 Who’s your dealer downtown?

The muscles of her neck tighten slightly. She’s smiling.

I give her throat a squeeze.

 Something funny?

She coughs.

 I thought you’d forgotten.

 Yeah. Well.

I uncurl my index finger from the syringe and point at the boys.

 All this ruckus, it slipped my mind for the nonce.

The elevator creaks closer.

She smiles again. But keeps her mouth shut.

I push the needle a little deeper into her eye socket.

 Who?

Knowing the name, wanting to hear it.

She’s still smiling.

 You won’t believe me.

 Try me.

Smiling. Croaking.

 Tom Nolan.

OK. Not the name I was expecting.

I squeeze her tighter.

 Bullshit.

The elevator clanks into place.

 Tell me the truth.

The words rasp out of her mouth.

 That is the truth.

The door clicks. The boys aren’t looking at me anymore.

Fuck.

I step to the side as the door slides open and the boy inside sprays his buddies instead of me, some of them hitting the deck, some of them riddled before they can react. I slam Vandewater against the wall, forearm across her throat, syringe in front of her face.

 Who?

She laughs.

 Tom Nolan! Tom Nolan!

The boy in the elevator stops shooting. I shove the plunger down, spurting the anathema into the old lady’s dead eyehole.

She screams and I shove her in front of the elevator. Bullets tear up her belly and she’s blown back into the uninjured boys who are getting up from the floor. The boy in the box stops shooting. I reach in and get a fistful of his jacket and drag him out.

Vandewater is freaking out like the enforcer did in the pool. The boys forget about me, trying to get a handle on her, trying to keep her from killing herself as she trashes the room. I throw the boy from the elevator at her and she latches on to him. I grab the key from its slot, step inside and hit the button for the garage.

As the door slides closed I see Mrs. Vandewater with the boy from the elevator in her clutches, dealing with him as the enforcer dealt with the dogs, the rest of the boys trying to bring her down.



I have the key stuck in the elevator control panel, turned to express. The boy’s machine pistol is on the floor. I pick it up. The elevator hits bottom and the door opens. No one is waiting. I flip the key over to hold, leave it there and get out. The garage is small, a dozen very expensive cars for the very expensive tenants of this building. The entrance is gated, a dull gray glow filtering through it. I turn away. There’s no attendant. I look at the cars. Really, it’s no contest, the Range Rover with the all-around tint job wins hands down.

I walk over and press my face against the glass to get a look inside at how serious the alarm is. I get my look. I jump back and bring up the machine pistol. Nothing happens. I take another look.

Mother fucker. You can’t be serious.

I try the door. It’s unlocked. I open it. His head is hanging to one side, mouth slack, one sleeve rolled up, syringe still in his hand. Couldn’t wait to fix, could you? I shove him to the passenger’s seat, climb in and check the back. The briefcase of anathema is right there. I look at his sorry ass.

 Dealers should never use, asshole.

But Shades doesn’t say anything, not nearly as talkative as he was when he was working the door at the Jack. He just stays right there in dreamland.

I put the machine pistol on the floor, close the door and give Shades a pat down. I find his gun and phone, gloves, and a ski mask. I put on his gear, turn the key and the engine rumbles up. I pull the Rover over to the gate. As the light gets brighter, the tinting gets darker. Still, my eyes water and burn. An electric eye triggers the gate and it slides open. I scoot as low as possible in the seat, sun visor dropped, and drive like hell.



There’s a reason they call it Morningside Park. That cliff is actually a part of the Manhattan schist, a long rift that runs along the upper end of the island. West is high ground, east is low. And the park? That’s facing east. I come out of the garage headed into the sun. But the tinting was worth every dime Shades paid for it. I know this because my eyes don’t turn to steam. I head north on Morningside Avenue, the sun on my right, hidden by the clouds. I follow the avenue around the block and it drops down a slope to Amsterdam. Another right, and the slope grows steeper as the buildings grow taller. I’m driving in shade. A right on MLK Boulevard and I’m dropping down to the Harlem Plain. Back in the Hood.

Frying pan?

Fire?

Who’s keeping track anymore? They both burn. And tinting or no, I’m gonna do the same if I stay out here. A blast down the West Side Highway is tempting, but it’ll most likely be gridlocked this time of morning. Traffic jam? With the sun climbing? No thanks. Across Hancock Square I see the big mall they built a few years back, part of the economic recovery in Harlem. It already looks shabby, but it has a public garage. I swing in, roll the window down, stick out my gloved hand, snatch a ticket from the dispenser and pull into the deep darkness. It takes a few minutes to find a space big enough for the Rover, but I don’t mind.



The backs of my hands are blistered. They caught a few rays when I had that boy under the drapes. The burn runs up my forearms. I’ll live. For the moment. Getting to the moments after this one, that’s the trick now.

I look at Shades. A muscle in his cheek twitches. If he’s dosed like the girls at The Count’s place, he should be rousing pretty soon. I give him another pat to make sure he’s not packing any other weapons. I give the interior of the car a once over. Just me, Shades, and the briefcase full of anathema.

I wonder what the expiration date is on that shit. If this stooge was taking a break to fix, it must be at least several hours. He probably wasn’t gonna be driving all over the Hood making drops in the sun. It might be as many as twelve hours. I take one of the bags and slip it inside my jacket.

Time to call Digga.

The anathema, that’s the evidence he wants. Shades alive and available for questioning, that’s a bonus. Play it cool, there should be something in it for me. Blood or money. Skin in the game.

I flip open Shades’ phone and make a call.



 Chubby.

 Grand to hear from you, Joe.

 Good to hear your voice, too, Chubs.

 Something I can do for you?

 Well, kind of embarrassing, seeing as you already did me a solid recently.

He grunts.

 Vouching for you, Joe? That’s wasn’t a solid, that was merely good business. Someone calls asking me for a reference, it’s only good business that I tell them the truth. That is all I did. Happy to do it. Happy to. But there’s something more?

 I need a number.

 Mmhmm?

 On account.

 Mnn.

 But I’ll cover it when I get back.

 Get back? Still in the northern latitudes, my friend?

 For the time being.

 Well then, if I can be of assistance in bringing you homeward, I must do so.

He gives me the number.

 Thanks, Chubs.

 A pleasure. As always.

 By the way.

 Yes?

 Never knew you were quite so connected.

 Caution, Joe, use it in liberal amounts.